12 Experts Share Their Winning Secrets Of Successful Customer Experience Transformation

“There is a lot that goes into creating a customer experience transformation in an organization. Step one would be to recognize this:

Customer service is not a department. It is a philosophy to be embraced by everyone in the organization, from the CEO to the most recently hired.

Brands that deliver amazing customer experiences make it part of their culture. Take a look at the companies best known for service and experience, and you’ll see it is in their “corporate DNA.”

It starts with leadership defining what the brand’s customer experience looks like. That’s the customer service or experience vision. It has to be a simple message that is easily understood and followed. From there everyone (not just customer-facing employees) is trained to the vision. And, leadership must lead by example. They set the tone and example for others to follow by the way they act out and support their vision.”

“My biggest advice to any organisation is summed up in three words – COLLABORATION, COMMITMENT, and TRANSPARENCY! The only way any organisation will be able to sustainably transform putting the customer at the heart of everything they do is if everyone in the business, from top to bottom, is prepared to work TOGETHER to achieve that aspiration. To that requires a huge amount of courage and COMMITMENT – it is a long-term business strategy that will require the will and effort of leaders to keep going, whatever barriers are put in their way. Finally, if the transformation is going to work, every decision and action made in relation to the customer AND employee experience must be made TRANSPARENTLY – all employees of the organisation need to know the what, how and why!”

“The biggest mistake companies make is not actively involving their frontline ambassadors who are armed with great insight into what matters to customers. Transformation is about change. People do not resist change; they resist the prediction or perception of “pain” over which they have no control. Involving the frontline helps gain their commitment (not just compliance). People are more likely to care when they share.”

“There are three things that people need to take into account when they look at any transformation; People, Process and Technology. It is the people, the process, and the changes in behaviour that will have the most impact and not the technology. Don’t forget that any change needs to imbedded as people will always revert, initially back to what they did before the change.”

“My quick piece of advice is to start by listening to your customers and your frontline staff and fix what they say is broken.”

“Customer Experience Transformations is all about three things to reach success:

1. It´s all about TLC: Total Leadership Commitment around CX as a business discipline and the only sustainable competitive advantage

2. It´s all about embracing the outside in perspective, in the whole organization, and to gain deep understanding and empathy about your customers need, wants and desires with Customer Journey Mapping and strong personas.

3. It´s all about emotions. When companies are able to identify, measure (Voice of the Customer Program), and tap into these emotional motivators, they have a winning strategy to create loyalty, where customers stay longer, pay more and recommend your brand to friends and colleagues.”

“Here are the two main ‘secrets of success’ that I learned over many years. I learned the first one a long time ago. I learned the second one about two years ago and wish I had understood it much earlier.

1) It is essential to position the enemy as outside the company. The purpose of any strategy, including a customer experience strategy, is to win. Understanding what competitors are doing and how you compare helps sales people and facilitates communication.

2) Communicating progress using numbers is ineffective. You must grab your audience at an emotional level. A security software company could talk about numbers internally. It is more memorable to show a photo and say “This is John Smith. We lost his data. He lost his job.”

“HUMAN-CENTERED DESIGN is a simple and effective way to create a virtuous feedback loop to develop the total customer experience, from discovery to advocacy.

Design every part of the customer experience continuum with input from real people who closely match your present and future customers (Personas) to improve your CX interaction continuum including your people, messages, technology, products and services.

At every stage of development, from prototype to market, have real people test it. Refine the each part of the experience with their feedback until actual users report that it is as good and easy to use as it can be.

Modern companies such as Warby Parker and Etsy have embraced human-centered design to improve their products and services.

Keep people in the loop to determine and develop a complete customer experience for them. One that creates high levels of customer advocacy!”

“Embarking on a customer experience transformation? Then make sure to focus on WHY. At a strategic level, WHY clarifies your purpose and helps define your goals. At the executional level, sharing your WHY with those who will be driving the transformation throughout the organization is essential to getting not only buy-in but motivation as well. Too often the WHY is “we need to improve our customer service.” If you show your team what the changes will mean to customers, the organization, and them, it will help align you around a common purpose and set you up for success.”

“Customer service begins at home. Don’t reach outward until you reach inward. Take care of your employees and they will take of the customer.”